Who are Qualcomm's (QCOM) main competitors?

Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) is a multinational American company that sells telecommunications products. It competes in the three main revenue segments, QCT (Qualcomm CDMA Technologies), QTL (Qualcomm Technology Licensing), QSI (Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives) as well as an “other” segment. The company has over 31,300 employees and a market capitalization of $91.34 billion with Q1 2018 revenue of $6.04 billion, as of February 2018.

The first segment is QTL, which holds nearly all of Qualcomm’s patents. This is their second biggest moneymaker, where the company licenses out their patents to other companies. The segment netted the company around $1.3 billion in Q1 2018.

In the QCT segment, Qualcomm competes with major smartphone and tablet producers including Huawei, HTC, Nokia and Samsung. Qualcomm reported Q1 2018 QCT revenues of $4.6 billion, which is well beyond that of Nokia’s technology segment sales of $210 million and much greater than the $1.96 billion reported from fading competitor Motorola.

In the QSI segment, Qualcomm competes fiercely with traditional personal computer and hardware designers and manufacturers, such as IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPE) and Dell as well as younger search and Internet conglomerates like Google (GOOG). Total revenues for Qualcomm in the Networks segment are $5.8 billion. IBM has revenue of $22.5 billion and Hewlett-Packard reports $7.8 billion in Q4 2017 revenue, which highlights the varied nature of the valuations and product offerings of the companies competing with Qualcomm in the wireless and Internet segment. Other competitors in this space include Broadcom (BRCM), who is currently in the middle of attempting a hostile takeover of Qualcomm. Texas Instruments (TXN), and Nokia. Qualcomm is in the midst of a legal battle with one of their largest clients, Apple. The tech giant sued Qualcomm over chip royalties.

Qualcomm’s final revenue segment is their “other” segment, which complies the odds and ends that don’t fit neatly into its other segments. It competes with Texas instruments and accounts for $3.55 billion of Qualcomm’s revenue where Texas Instruments’ “other” segment is $319 million. Both companies are profitable and continue to expand their businesses.